Alright Capesters, this Sunday will be a very special Enter Player One. From 6pm Est till Midnight... I will be doing a show dedicated to Stan Lee. Join me in Atlas Park as we honor the man with music from Everything Marvel, video games, movies, and tv. Come in your favorite Marvel costumes. Also if you wish to say anything special about the man, how he inspired you or impacted your life your welcome to. Ether record it and send it to me, or just write it down and I'll read it on air. Just please get it to me before Sunday. If you have any questions please message me.

Just a reminder to come check out the Tribute show to Stan Lee this Sunday from 6pm est -Mid. In Atlas Park in Paragon Chat. Come in costume, or just come to celebrate the legacy of an Icon. Also remember to send me any special words your wish to say about the man and I'll read them on air. I've extended that deadline till 3pm Sunday.

The first was when I was in high school - I went to a school that was in a very gang-infested area, and one of the people in charge of campus security, to try and cut down on the graffiti and whatnot, had created a small comic book company and would publish stuff that people submitted provided that they stopped tagging and stayed out of trouble. He'd talked a few of the local comic shops into carrying them, but no one took it too seriously. He had actually submitted a few of the kids storyboards and ideas to Stan Lee, explaining what he was trying to do. No one actually expected him to actually answer, but there were a few that he actually sent back, along with a letter making suggestions and critiques. STAN LEE - the GOD of Marvel actually answering back to us - was unimaginable, but he did, and overnight this program that no one took seriously had a lot more credibility. I can't say it cleaned up the neighborhood entirely, but that program made a difference and Mr Lee's responses (because there were several) made it seem like it could really work.

The second, which is tiny in comparison but was MY experience, was that I used to work in a comic shop myself. When you looked around, you couldn't help but realize that there was so much that Marvel and Stan Lee had created or influenced. There were other players in the genre, to be sure, but without Stan Lee, it certainly wouldn't have been the same. It would have been a much smaller industry, and it's safe to say that my shop and others like it wouldn't have survived without the books that he helped create.

_________________"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end" - Seneca the Younger, ( Semisonic - Closing Time )

Stan Lee and his comics were a huge influence on my life from 5th grade on. His comics taught me about so much more than people in skintight outfits with strange powers - they taught me to take a good look at social issues like bullying and bigotry, drugs and violence, they showed me how to stop and look at different perspectives and trying to understand why people do what they do, and about the duty - and the cost - of doing the right thing, for yourself and for others.

They inspired me to make my own heroes, and to BE my own hero. They taught me, above all and always, to try and do the right thing. And they introduced me to a wonderful world of unique people who shared my interests and became friends.

So, thank you, Stan Lee, as you cross over the Rainbow Bridge. May you dwell always in the company of True Believers. Excelsior!

This is tricky for me to write about, because I'm not much of a comic book fan. I've read maybe 8 of them in my life. I did catch some important ones growing up. Batman: A Death in The Family, The Killing Joke. Superman: Doomsday. The Watchmen. So I grew up around DC characters. When Batman came out on the silver screen, I was hooked. It's easy to say Batman is my favorite character for a simple reason. He was around me from the beginning.

But in the 1990's, something happened. It wasn't a comic book. It wasn't a graphic novel. It was a TV Show. Fox Kids, which I grew up with (as my hometown had no cable and got three TV Stations over the air) had Batman The Animated Series for years. But one day, they started airing X-Men. And I was in love with it from the beginning. In the DC universe, metahumans are few and far between, a single champion or two per city. But not this introduction to the Marvel universe. A universe with as many heroes as people. Where there's just as many varieties and flavors of justice as there are varying ideologies and perspectives. And that is a very seductive thought: superpowers not as an exception to the rule, but rather as a fact of life. An idea that has been emulated time and time again. (City of Heroes! )

Then there's Spider-Man. Again, Fox Kids. And again, a different perspective. Peter Parker is the reluctant hero: he chooses to do what's right, but does so not from recognition or accolade. He does so because of a personal code. A lesson his uncle taught him that he keeps relearning over and over again. With great power comes great responsibility. Not only a challenge to be a hero, it's a caution of the guilt to be faced with when someone who has a gift keeps it from the world.

Not that DC didn't have these implications. The nature of Superman's alien origin and his separation from humanity isn't too dissimilar from the X-Men and the racist overtones that those without powers held towards mutants. Spider-Man's personal conflicts isn't worlds apart from Rorschach from The Watchmen. Peter Parker rethought his attitude towards his powers after Uncle Ben died. Rorschach went the other way: "[They] will look up and shout 'Save us!'... and I'll look down and whisper 'No.'" The stories that DC has to tell are worth hearing, and are psychological studies of character you won't find anywhere else.

But the approach Marvel took was unique from DC. Where DC had many retellings of their core superheroes, Marvel had as many heroes as the stories they could tell. And that was the biggest strength of ideas like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Where a large sweeping narrative was made over the years with every superhero story telling a small part of a larger poetic edda. A legend of modern gods, only who are as fallible as any man or woman, as flawed as any of us. Sometimes, they work together. Sometimes, they fight against themselves, and sometimes, a common foe makes allegiances blur to answer a larger challenge to humanity. No one Marvel hero was the answer to the world's problems, they all are. Every action matters. Every effort has meaning, superpowered or not.

If anything, Marvel has taught me that while as long as any difference of opinion exists, war will always be a threat to us, that the variety and breadth of humanity and it's talents make such a threat worth fighting to defend against entropy. To keep doing what is right. To keep hope alive. Justice isn't going to be a one word, one sentence solution to the world's complex problems. Freedom isn't going to be a single day, month, or moment that arrives without an expiration date. And Liberty isn't ours to keep without responsibility and hard work. Stan Lee made a universe that we can all relate to, and a model for mankind to look at when the complexity of the world makes doing the right thing seem harder and harder to accomplish. And that is an accomplishment that few other artists can claim.

I will miss him, but I know that my life has been made richer for his labors. Thanks, Stan.

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